Cardinal Dolan calls on Catholics to be “very active, involved in politics”

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan told Roman Catholics on Saturday that in an era when the church was fighting the government on several fronts, they needed to make their voices heard more clearly in the political sphere.

Speaking at a diocesan convocation on public policy here, Cardinal Dolan, who is the archbishop of New York and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, “We are called to be very active, very informed and very involved in politics.”

The cardinal’s speech came in advance of the church’s annual lobbying day in Albany, scheduled for March 13.

Though the Obama administration has suggested a compromise that could let employers offer the coverage without paying for it directly, Cardinal Dolan told the crowd at Holy Trinity Diocesan High School that the government sought to make the church do something “we find unconscionable.”

“It is a freedom of religion battle,” he said. “It is not about contraception. It is not about women’s health.” He added: “We’re talking about an unwarranted, unprecedented, radical intrusion” into “a church’s ability to teach, serve and sanctify on its own.”

The cardinal mocked a secular culture that “seems to discover new rights every day.”

“I don’t recall a right to marriage,” he said, describing marriage, instead, as a “call.”

“Now we hear there’s a right to sterilization, abortion and chemical contraceptives. I suppose there might be a doctor who would say to a man who’s suffering some type of sexual dysfunction, ‘You ought to visit a prostitute to help you.’ ”

Cardinal Dolan said that the prelates, though, might not be the church’s most persuasive advocates. He told a story about bishops hiring an “attractive, articulate, intelligent” laywoman to speak against abortion and said it was “the best thing we ever did,” adding, “In the public square, I hate to tell you, the days of fat, balding Irish bishops are over.”

Instead, he emphasized the role of the laity. While priests and bishops “stick to principles,” he said, “we leave a lot of the messiness of politics up to you.”